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Monday, April 1, 2013

Slipping on Your Character Mask by Dawn Lairamore

There are lots of useful, interesting, and just plain odd character
exercises out there, all aimed at helping you get to know your characters
better so you can write them more effectively.

Some are pretty standard:

Give your character a job
interview.

If your character emptied
his or her pockets or handbag, what would they contain? Why do they carry
these things and what do these items say about them?

Some are a little more in depth:

Describe a room in the
home of your character. Only the room—no dialogue, commentary, etc. Just
what the room contains. The idea is to get to know your character through
their personal belongings, their choices in décor, the color palette they
pick, etc.

Write a speech your
character would give if he or she was speaking in front of a large group
of people.

Write an online dating
profile for your character. (I’m assuming actually posting it online is
not required, although you never know . . . you might get some hits.)

Some are pretty involved and really require you to immerse
yourself:

Spend a day as one of your
characters. Dress like the character, go to a restaurant and order the
kind of food this character would eat, go to a park and make observations
about the people and environment that this character would make, etc.

Go to a store and only add
items to your cart that your character would buy. (This one could be
really interesting. If your character is a serial killer, you could be
filling your cart with things like meat cleavers and rat poison, lol! I take it you’re
not actually supposed to buy these items. Hopefully you’d put them back on
the shelf yourself and not abandon your cart somewhere, forcing an unlucky
store employee to do the re-shelving.)

I like character exercises as much as the next writer, but I’ll confess, I have yet to dress up like any of my
characters, head to the local pizza parlor, and ponder what kind of toppings
they’d order (hopefully it wouldn’t be anchovies—eww!). But who knows—maybe I’ll work up
the nerve to do that one day.

In the meantime, please share—what are the most useful
and/or weirdest character exercises you’ve come across?

DISCLAIMER

The authors of Project Mayhem do their best to provide accurate, witty, and sometimes manic information pertaining to all things middle grade. Any resemblance to anybody else's manic, witty, and accurate information is purely serendipitous. However, the views and opinions expressed herein are solely those of the individual authors, and do not necessarily reflect those of the other writers on this blog. Except, we all agree that reading Project Mayhem will brighten your day. Drop by mic.